Young artists sell mugs for homeless shelter

GENOA – There are yellow ones and blue ones and black ones and many with speckles. There are ones with smiles and hearts and wings and even animals at the bottom.

“People drink and there’s a duck starring back at you,” Lisa Beynon laughed.

Beynon teaches the Genoa-Kingston High School art class which is sponsoring the fourth annual Mugs and Hugs fundraiser. It will be held in the high school library from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, March 1. Mugs made by the Art 150 class will be sold for $5 each. Half the money will go to the art department and the other half to Hope Haven of DeKalb County.

Beynon said the ceramic mugs are food-safe and can serve any number of purposes: drinking, decoration, pen holder, paperweight, whatever.

“The kids really enjoy doing this,” she said. “It’s a good cause.”

“This is a way to give back to the community, which is really important,” junior Travis Hughes said.

“We get great training and we get to help people at the same time,” sophomore Breea Rogalla added.

Junior Colin Broderick said students were asked to donate at least one of the mugs they made in class. The rest they could keep. Rogalla said if she could, she would also donate some of the other items she made in class, including coasters, trinket boxes and pinch pots. Hughes said he plans to give the rest of his mugs to family and friends as gifts.

Justin Johnson said he’ll probably give his to his parents – “just to get some brownie points,” he joked.

All the students said they enjoyed working with clay, which they’ve done since the holiday break, but also the art class in general.